


First Patrol

by whatdoyouthinkmyjobis



Series: Hunters on the Hellmouth [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Dean Flirts, Dean is Bad at Feelings, Dirty Thoughts, F/M, Family Issues, Flirting, POV Third Person Limited, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 07, Sexual Frustration, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoyouthinkmyjobis/pseuds/whatdoyouthinkmyjobis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some huge differences between being a hunter versus the Slayer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Patrol

Buffy leaned against the graveyard gate with a dreamy smile on her face. For once, everything was going smoothly. Today, she’d signed up for three classes for her next semester at UC Sunnydale, put in applications at two fast food chains and a coffee house, fielded a couple promising calls from people wanting to buy her SUV, and secured some money for Dawn at the social security office. Giles had even surprised her with a call. Even though he didn’t have news about a miracle recovery for Willow, she always found his voice comforting. Dean and Sam Winchester – neither her new boyfriend despite what Dawn had told Giles – had decided to take her up on a stint in town and would be joining her soon for their first patrol.

The Winchesters were an interesting new twist in her life. Sam was kind, with a bit of a bitchy streak he’d unleash on his brother. He seemed very smart – knowledgeable about both monsters and the big scary real world. If he wasn’t planning on leaving once Will got back, Buffy thought the two would have a blast talking about the future of computers. Tech love aside, he was almost like a tall version of Giles except with great hair and a lumberjack’s wardrobe. They even made similar exasperated faces. She wondered if Sam had glasses.

Then there was Dean. He was definitely the bruiser of the two. A little too macho. Terrible taste in music. But he was surprisingly warm with Dawn and Xander. Since he’d stopped over-enunciating her name and making jabs about her getting herself killed, he sort of looked at her (often) with some sort of admiration. Buffy didn’t mind the change. The man was sex on bowlegs. She was not going to spend the next few weeks playing with Mr. Tickles if she could be moaning in Dean Winchester’s ear. 

Despite her neon road signs flashing “I’m interested!” he’d yet to make a move past touching her face. Since the Winchesters had agreed to stay, he’d been distant, avoiding being alone with her, not standing nearly as close as he had been. Her libido was not having it.

Buffy wasn’t lonely. She had friends. She had family. She didn’t have release. She spent nearly every night fighting, killing, saving. Quick bursts of energy, a jolt of adrenaline, and…finishing the night with whatever cowboys, dukes or billionaires Harlequin provided. It had been about four months since she’d been touched, and his touch was toxic. Her fling with Spike had been unhealthy to the point where sex became something born from self-loathing and, in the end, fear. She wanted gloriously uncomplicated sex. No dates. No relationship to maintain. No expectations. She just wanted hands on her ass, lips on her nipples, and a thick, hard –

A now-familiar old black car rolled up to the curb.

“You’re late!” she chided, thankful the cover of darkness was hiding whatever blushing she may have been doing.

“In our defense,” said Sam, “Sunnydale has a lot of cemeteries. Shady Hills versus Shady Acres?” He shrugged and walked around to the back of the car.

“Do you guys walk anywhere?”

“Not when you’re used to travelin’ cross-country.” Dean popped open the trunk. “You know, your friend appreciated Baby. You could learn from him.”

Xander had turned into a gushing fanboy when he found out the classic car parked in front of her house all day belonged to Dean. Xander didn’t even know anything about cars, but said, “It felt like a cool guy thing.” Boys.

Buffy joined them by the trunk. “What the –?” The Impala’s spacious trunk had a hidden compartment, propped open with a shotgun, full of weapons and magic paraphernalia. “I keep all my weapons in a chest in my house.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking a peek at your chest later,” said Dean. 

Sam shot his brother a scowl of disapproval. 

Buffy gave him a sideways glance and an approving smirk.

Shifting the conversation, she picked up a small bullet and rolling it around in her fingers asked, “What are all the guns for?”

She still remembered the burn of the bullet ripping through her chest. The blood on Xander’s hands. Dawn, crouched and shaking, transfixed by Tara’s dead body. _What are all the guns for?_

Not knowing any of this, the brothers looked at her like she’d just asked them to put on tutus.

“What? I’m not a fan.”

“You’re not a fan?” Dean looked skeptical. “So you just get in arms reach of everything? Let it take a swipe at ya?”

“I have a crossbow and throwing knives and other stuff like that, but no guns.” She put the bullet back in the trunk. “They just don’t work on my monsters. They work on yours?”

“Not always.” Pointing around in the trunk, Sam said, “The shotguns we pack with rock salt for ghosts and demons. It doesn’t kill them, but it buys us time. Got some iron rounds and silver bullets for other types of monsters. Works on some. Others need a knife to the heart.”

“Big fan of decapitation,” added Dean. “If it will take a bullet and a dagger without going down, lop that sucker off. That doesn’t kill ‘em you at least get a laugh watchin’ the body look for the head.”

He smiled at Sam who was rolling his eyes and Buffy who was suppressing a giggle.

“Decapitation works here, but I like a trusty wooden stake for my vampires.” Buffy pulled two from her bag and handed them to the Winchesters.

Her voice low and determined, she looked them in the eye. “Guys, I don’t care how you did things back home or even if you’ve never missed a shot. Keep the guns put away in Sunnydale, okay?”

Dean took out two machetes and closed the trunk. “Alright, let’s kill some poofies.”

* * *

 

Nearly an hour had passed, and they hadn’t killed anything. The first grave on their list was empty; some college basketball star had already risen and was loose somewhere. The next victim was in another cemetery across town, but the third was nearby and still underground. Buffy and Sam leaned against a headstone while Dean paced around peering into the dark as they waited for a vampire formerly known as Roberta Flores to make an appearance.

“I wonder if she went by Bobbi or Robbie,” said Sam. “Tombstones are always so formal.”

“Berta?” suggested Buffy. “That’s almost worse.”

“Are your nights usually such a non-stop thrill ride?” Dean asked.

“Most nights. It never stops, but it slows down. At least it’s just been vampires for the past few months. No demons or cults or anything new and crazy.” She twirled the stake around in her hand. “I did a lot of homework in graveyards. Vampire unpunctuality greatly aided my C/B average in high school. They really cared about my education.”

“I still can’t believe you’re in college,” said Dean.

“Excuse me? My grades weren’t that bad.”

“Didn’t say they were, but you’re kinda busy with hellbeasts. Surprised you took the time to give a shit ‘bout high school.”

“What else would I do? Drop out like some loser? Mom would have loved explaining that to people.”

“What are you studying?” Sam asked, a small catch in his voice.

“This semester, Environmental Science, Music Appreciation, and Developmental Psychology.”

“That’s…eclectic.”

“Yeah, they’re mostly gen eds. I haven’t really settled on a major yet,” she sheepishly conceded. “I’ve been too busy.”

“Then why are you doing it?” Dean’s voice had more punch this time.

“Excuse me?”

“College. Why are you bothering? Sounds like you already have enough balls up in the air with taking care of your sister and trying to get a job and fighting a poofy infestation. Why add another?”

“God, Dean, what’s your problem?” Sam asked before Buffy could respond. “I went to college. It’s a perfectly normal thing to do.”

Dean stopped pacing around and stared right at them. “Running away may have been okay for you–”

Sam shook his head as if slapped. “Running away? This life is shit–”

“Well she can’t!” Dean pointed at Buffy, his jaw clenched and eyes ablaze. “She’s stuck here being ‘the chosen one’ fighting evil alone. Why? What fucking douchebags decided this fight was for one girl and one girl only?”

Buffy bit her tongue. He didn’t actually want to know about the shaman and the creation of the first Slayer. He was hot about Sam, clearly. And he was pissed about her. Her uniqueness. Her choices. Her lack thereof. “You want to know why I’m wasting my time thinking about my future when I obviously don’t have one.”

His gaze had been so intense, burning into her, but he looked away now, ashamed of what he’d made her vocalize.

“It’s because I don’t have one.” It was her turn to burn into him. “I’m not running away. I’m not in denial. My long-term life goal is to see Dawn finish high school, but I do want to go through the motions of a perfectly normal twenty-one-year-old. School is hard and, honestly, sometimes it gives me a stabbing pain behind the eyes, but I like knowing I have potential to do more than just kill. Just because death is my gift, doesn’t mean it’s my only one. So tell me, Dean, what joy do you get in saving the world if you’re not living in it?”

He bit his bottom lip and stared at the ground. “Didn’t mean to make you…” he trailed off.

“Make me what? Confront my mortality? Oh, Death and I are pretty intimate at this point. Don’t think for a second that just because I’m painting my sister’s nails or studying nature versus nurture that I have forgotten I’m the Slayer.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” he said, gesturing emphatically with his machete. “You’re the Slayer. You. You seem more than capable of dealin’, but it’s only you. Why haven’t other people joined this fight? Why are they all waitin’ on you? I know the world don’t balance fair and the white hats don’t always ride off into the sunset, but goddamnit, Buffy, being any sort of Chosen One is drawing the fuckin’ short straw.”

Hot and hurt, they stared at each other across the chasm of silence.

Dean looked away first. His expression changed from one of pain and worry to something sharp and alert. About sixty feet behind the headstone Buffy and Sam were leaning against was a tall man wearing what appeared to be a basketball uniform. “Well, that ain’t right.”

He set off in the direction of the newcomer, but something tugged on his leg. A hand was sticking out of the grave and gripping his ankle. Roberta Flores was undead. Dean pulled, but at best he was just helping the monster rise. With a whip of the machete, he cut off the hand. 

“Deal with her,” he said to Sam and Buffy. “I got Air Jordan back there.”

The bloody stump flailed. They could hear screaming beneath them. The other hand broke ground. Buffy grabbed it and yanked the enraged vampire half out of its grave, its fangs already bared. With both hands useless, it tried to bite Buffy. She kicked it in the jaw with a sickening smack.

“Sam, stake it!”

He pulled the stake from his waistband, dropped to his knees, and plunged it into the snarling beast in front of him. It turned to a pile of dust.

Buffy grabbed his arm. “Dean needs help.”

* * *

 

Dean caught up to the hulking and haggard basketball star. He slashed at the vampire, but it leaned out of the way. It grabbed Dean by his arm and swung him into a headstone, but Dean pushed off with his feet, throwing the vampire off balance. They fell to the ground. The air knocked from his lungs, Dean groped in the dark for his blade, finding only cool, sticky pools. In the tumble, his machete had impaled the vampire. Confused and angry, it pulled it out. It took a swipe at Dean still laying on the ground. He rolled, caught the monster’s arm and snapped the bones. It howled in pain. Wresting the machete from the broken creature, Dean stood up and chopped its head from its body.

“Wow.”

Dean looked up. Buffy and Sam were standing nearby. He was happy to see, she looked impressed. Almost aroused.

“You’re a pretty good fighter,” she said. “Did you break that vampire’s arm?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“I dunno. I just broke it.”

“Yeah, but vampire’s are really strong. I didn’t think you’d be able to injure one, let alone take one down by yourself.”

Dean looked at his brother who was not at all surprised by this outcome. “You want to tell her, Sammy?”

“We don’t really know that it –”

“You tell her, or I’m gonna tell her.”

“Tell me what?”

Sam sighed, clearly exasperated Dean had mention it. “I like to run in the mornings. I’m pretty fit, so a mile takes me about eight minutes. This morning, the first time I’ve gone running since we got here, I did it in just over three.”

“Is that crazy-fast? What does that mean?”

“Don’t know what it means other than I could enter the Olympics if I wanted to. There’s other things too. I mean, we both seem to be a little faster, a little stronger since we’ve been here.”

Buffy put up her hands. “I don’t even know what to do with the weirdness you bring into my life.”

She looked Dean over. “You are soaked in blood. This is why I prefer stakes – less laundry.”

Dean tugged at his damp shirt. It wasn’t hot like blood, more like a thick jelly, and it was all over his shirt and jeans. He shrugged and started to unbutton it. “Eh, pretty typical.”

“Ew. Well, the next one is across town. You should probably go back to your hotel and clean up. Sam and I can handle it.”

Not one to be pushed aside, Dean argued, “It’s just a graveyard. It’s not like the poofies give a shit if I’m not Mr. Clean.”

“Just a graveyard with a vampire in it, and you smell like bait. Go home, Dean. You’re done for the night.”

Her face was firmly determined, her voice harsh. Whatever excitement had stirred within her was drowned out by her previous anger. He hadn’t meant to hurt her; he wanted to question the order of things. Instead of saying anything, he walked toward the car.

* * *

 

The entire drive to their seedy motel, Dean, wrapped in a blanket from the trunk, quietly stared out the window as Sam drove. When they parked, he opened the door, paused and mumbled, “Didn’t mean to insult you.” He hadn’t looked at either one of them before sliding out of the car and ducking into their room.

Other than Buffy giving directions, the drive to the next cemetery was equally quiet. When they got out of the car, she asked, “Which one of us do you think he was apologizing to?”

Sam shrugged.

“What did Dean mean when he said you were running away?”

“He shouldn’t have said that.”

“What did he mean?”

“It’s personal.”

“No, no. You do not get to be in my house, in my bills, and then toss up a personal curtain. Dean was too upset about me going to college for all of his anger to be for little ol’ me. So what did he mean about running away?”

“I don’t think he was upset about you going to college, so much as he feels your situation isn’t fair.”

“I gathered. You’re evading the question.”

Sam smiled at her doggedness. “Have you thought about majoring in law? Witnesses would wither before you.”

Buffy continued staring at him with her big green eyes, fully expecting an answer.

“Okay then. Dean’s right. Going to college was me running away from home.”

“Your dad didn’t want you to go?”

“For a long time, I thought dad was an obsessive bastard who didn’t care about us, about our educations. All he wanted was to kill the thing that killed Mom. He wanted good little soldiers to join his crusade. But the truth I realized too late was that he wasn’t well. Mom’s death broke him, and he tried his best to raise us – his last pieces of her – alone.

“Both my dad and Dean wanted to keep the family together, and I basically told them both to fuck off and die. Not my proudest moment.

“It’s funny. We hadn’t found anyone else, but I was still really hoping to find my teenage self at Stanford. Sophomore Sam would have been so sickened and disappointed to find out he’d be hunting again and riding around the country with his jerk brother in 2010, but I wanted to tell that know-it-all to relax and to maybe call Dean. Give him a chance.”

The grave they were seeking was already disturbed, so they walked on, the silence only broken by the crunching pebbles underfoot.

“Sam, how long have you been doing this? Monster hunting?”

“I don’t know. I think I was thirteen or fourteen when I started going on hunts. I was pretty small though, so they mostly made me do all the research. Nothing like relying on a middle schooler’s grasp of Latin when lives are on the line.”

“Whoa, back up. I’m not sure if I want to start with middle school or ‘pretty small.’”

“No lie.” Sam put one hand over his heart and held up the other like he was swearing an oath. “I was the shortest kid in my Freshmen class.”

Buffy laughed. “But you’re, like, a giant!”

Sam laughed too. “Puberty was late and a total bitch.” 

“So if you were thirteen/fourteen when you started, your brother would have been, what, sixteen?”

“Uh no. See, I didn’t even know about all of this until I was eight. I thought my dad was a traveling salesman and my mom died in a car accident. Once I found out, Dad started teaching me how to research and fight and shoot. Dean’s known since mom died when he was four. I think he was five when Dad taught him how to shoot. He’d leave Dean with a shotgun, tell him to keep me safe, and then he’d take off for days. I just thought Dad was worried about robbers or something. I never imagined…”

Buffy pictured the strong, cocky, bull of a man she’d been getting to know; then she imagined the tow-headed, wide-eyed child he had to have been. Mother torn away from him by a demon. Father torn apart by depression. A small child learning how to fire a gun he could barely hold up, how to kill very real nightmare creatures. _Pretty typical,_ he’d said of the blood. _Good little soldiers_ , Sam had called them.

She felt like she’d disturbed something Dean had buried.

“I don’t see that vamp anywhere,” she said, attempting to change the subject. “Normally when this happens, I just walk around the local dark-and-creepies to see if anyone’s being used as a juice box.”

“Sounds fine to me.”

They left the cemetery and headed toward downtown, chatting about the insane cost of textbooks and the future of online classes. 

* * *

 

After a couple hours of checking alleys and abandoned buildings, they decided to call it a night. Buffy insisted on going back to the Sunnydale Motor Inn with Sam. “With all of the words flying around, I just want to make sure everything’s okay. You’re here for a while. Let’s keep the awkward to a minimum.”

“I don’t think interrupting Dean’s midnight porn binge for a heart-to-heart is going to accomplish that.

Buffy curled her lip in disgust. “This will be easier if I pretend I didn’t hear that.”

She got out of the Impala and sat on the hood while Sam went to their motel room to fetch his brother. The car’s engine clicked as it cooled. Muffled shouting drifted to her from a room down the row. A woman sporting daisy dukes and a black eye shuffled toward the ice machine by the office. A cloud of bugs danced around the vacancy sign.

“You better not be scratchin’ my baby sittin’ on her like that,” came Dean’s grumbling drawl.

He leaned against the car parked beside his precious Impala. He’d showered and changed into another pair of jeans and a thin white t-shirt. Between the shirt and his crossed arms, his biceps didn’t have a chance of being missed. Again, Buffy was curious about the whorls of ink just visible beneath his sleeve. Maybe one day she’d peel that t-shirt off him.

“Why is it a she?”

“All cars are shes.”

“You’re very protective of her.”

“She’s very important to me.”

Buffy uncrossed her legs and hopped off the hood. “I just wanted to say that you were really great tonight.”

“I know.”

She smirked. “I’m not here to stroke your ego, Dean.”

He uncrossed his arms and raised his eyebrows, a naughty smile growing across his face. “You here to stroke somethin’ else?”

She swatted at him. “I was going to tell you I accept your apology for being a jerk, but you’re still a frustrating jerk.”

He grabbed her hot-blooded hand. “Supergirly, that wasn’t an apology. That was me pointing out you took things wrong.”

She didn’t care. She didn’t care he was being cocky and frustrating. She didn’t care he wasn’t sorry about snapping at her earlier and putting her under a microscope. He was holding her hand. His thick, calloused fingers consumed hers. Leaning into his tall frame, she enjoyed his heat in the late summer night. With a delicious slowness, he brushed the hair from her face, hooked it around her ear, and trailed his fingers down her neck. Her body hummed at his touch. He tilted her chin up and swept his thumb against her lips.

“Can I take you home?” he asked with a half grin.

“Take me home? Are you sure you’re not from the past? Or do you have something else in mind?” She licked her lips, her eyes a half-closed suggestion. Her house wasn’t ideal for the something else she hoped for, but they could figure something out.

Letting go of her hand and scratching behind his ear, he glanced back at his room. Acting unlike the man she’d come to know, he hesitated. “You didn’t get all the poofies, did you? Just want to make sure you’re safe.”

Reluctantly, Buffy separated herself from Dean’s warm, firm body. “No, we didn’t, but I don’t need an escort.”

She crossed her arms and leaned back against the Impala, mentally wishing the hope of getting laid farewell. “Here’s the situation, Dean. I’m a student. I’m busy. I’m _interested_. I’m in charge, and I’m the scariest thing on the Hellmouth. We’d get along better if you accepted what is and stopped thinking you need to protect me.”

She headed home, mulling over which book she would spend the night with.


End file.
